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Maybe we do things for our selves, whether it means helping someone or not.
What motive do we have to help? The transition from helping to self interest?

Reducing the stress of another may help us to reduce our own stress, so what happens to look like altruistically motivated behaviour is just self interest in disguise. Everything we do from the considerate to the heroic is ultimately for our own benefit. There are some times when the rewards can be obvious, and other times not so obvious. I believe people live their lives through self interest, you do it to help yourself. People disrupt Maslow's ideas but they still give.

Sometimes those who have less give more.

Someone without having their basic needs met can still be charitable, but how can this be so when Maslow says these basic needs are necessary? Homeless people, even though they don't have their basic needs met, are still charitable. This shows us that ultimately empathy is more important than any layer of the pyramid.

Self interest and empathy, humans are social creatures that can work together and empathise together to build a stronger society.

Love and empathy aren't trivial things that can be bargained with, they are the most powerful forces of our lives. You may not retain this, if it wasn't entertaining enough, but the next time you go out and see a homeless person on the street. You may not find it in your heart to help them during their desperate time of need, but you are just as desperate as they are, only for different reasons. - Kennard Kim

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Kurt said:

blingbling said:

Kurt said:

I can understand your rationalizations, broadly speaking, but how can you actually in a simultaneous moment, pity and and envy someone at once? I can understand but do not sympathize I should say  It seems to me the only explanation is you choose to associate with broad identity politics, and their associated psychologies, where you assume this intellectual  conceit, rather than looking to the form of content of statements you generally refer to and living by what you know, and might reasonably face as the facts.

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I've already explained how I can simultaneously pity and envy someone, I don't understand why you don't believe me. I spoke to a pastor once that claimed that many of the atheists he met "wished they could believe" I totally get that. Why wouldn't someone want to be certain of life meaning?

I'm not sure where your getting identity politics from, we can talk about identity without going down that rabbit hole. But it may be worth pointing out that identity politics is a symptom of this lack of cosmic meaning, it is an hysterical attempt at creating norms around political correctness that takes on a religious flavour.

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Speaking as someone who knows something about existential ontology, phenomenology, and history of philosophy, and who studied this at a graduate, what you are saying to me seems like a misunderstanding. There are too many generalizations. In our small microcosm of discourse it could be called pulling an Icelander. You seem to vest in an existential view, but you look to rationalize and mobilize an idea based on your own weakness, and form an identity of this, and then a cult, as you try to level everyone to a mere pyschological issue as a denomination of discussion. Or can you say why you are not trying to pull an icelander on us?

Anytime you generalize argumentative positions in a summary way, or talk about the way people might identify with an idea in a general synopsis (as a historical traditon...an ism... or as a broad description of how these positions play out...) and force others to this level, rather than address the form of content or basic substance of argument in the present dialogue, you are mobilizing a movement around and about ideas, and an identificatory basis rather than actually speaking of ideas.

In your case, like pulling an Icelander you are attempting to rationalize weakness. What you consider your strongest argument is actually weakness, isn't it? Why do you choose to assume that "ignorance is bliss" is an intellectual position, as a conceit, here, when what you are talking about is your own mental weakness and inconsistency, at a more basic level? You look away from the form of content of such statements, and rationalize the way that people might identify with things, out of weakness, as a psychological issue in the matter at issue.

Ignorance is bliss, means that instead of following reason and stepping out into the clearing of these particular terms you refer to you choose to keep them and mobilize them in your own way, through generalization of the positions of argument. You continue to speak as though there is someone is right about "something" (about some imagined thing/being) in a generality and in entrenched and recalcitrant terms, instead of following the movement of reason, to the clearing.
Because you actively choose to frame what you are saying as an intellectual conceit, ignorance is bliss, and level to this, you ignore that at some level this is basically your weakness and vascillation in coming to the conclusion in the matter. Rather than either reasonably admiting your weakness, in this way or overcoming it, you hedge a passive aggressive psychological rationalization in the prior terms you remain occupied with. If god does not exist, as Christians say, the conclusion is stepping into the clearing of these terms.

For example, why do you carry on about an essentially christian ontology, without god? This is vascillating and mental weakness. The only "problem" of meaning in your sense is you do not make any actual statements. At no point do you make any statements about the world, or being (ta on, onta, "being") but only talk about something at a level that people might commonly identify with, and imply this is your ontology by entrenched tradition. Or individually speaking, in terms of the conclusion you might reasonably come to you bring a weak stomach for the world and attempt to mobilize it, as your residing christian ontology.

I think you should back up and at least admit that for some people this conceit of disenchantment, and "ignorance is bliss" is no argument. It is just the way you have learned to look away from the reasonable intellectual conclusion, the substantive argument in fact. You rationalize something vague about this, based on alienation and weakness. It is poor understanding and generalization of history for your march of ideas. So again, I do not know what you mean by something you hold on to in theist's arguments, that makes us realize the necessity of universal/religious meaning. This identification is not based on reason, but psychological, and superficial, and that is how what you say stands out, without substance.

I was trying to get at this psychological level and dig something out.

Why - or how - do you pity and envy christians/theists? You claim a single evaluation, or that you have come to an intellectual conclusion, but I think you are again just vascillating, between terms and letting other people pick up the tab. I can understand where the conflict of these statements may not be immediately apparent to you. Ignorance is bliss, is a more general tongue and cheek statement, or rhetorical pursuasion. But you seem to go about this a bit more seriously, rationalizing and mobilizing this as a common denomination of weakness, rather than authentically coming to the "existential" base you actually might know of.

Maybe I can only speak from my own perspective and experience. I do not pity christians, but I do not envy them. I usually meet christians half way as human beings. To me, it doesn't matter what religions people live by, compared to other things, like general principles, that more clearly determine a person's character. I would never envy someone I pity though, in the same moment. That is too self degrading. What I see in pity is something clearly wretched and neither content or happy, but why even mourn this?  If you do not move between different levels of abstraction and try to deceive yourself, this conceit of disenchantment is petty and weak. I think this is as clear as I can be so I will leave it at that.

But here is some advice. Try to speak of the form of content of arguments you refer to, and not always just about it, in generalized positions, or sociological or psychological generalities as what people might identify with. If Christian ontotheology is dead, that means it (you) come into a clearing. If on the other hand you think about pulling an Icelander on us and starting a cult based on on psychological weakness, and alienation, I would say this is not "existential", or a very convincing pissing contest to many of us. Think about where you might end up going that direction. I recommend ditching the bullshit of sociology and psychology, as a generalization, and doing what you are doing in more genuine terms.

Maybe see Heidegger "existential vs. existentiell" for a primer.

(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentiell)

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Wow, you must have called me weak at least 10 times. But, that's right, its me that is projecting

If my ontology is a form of psychological weakness then please explain to me what an ontology of strength would look like?

There are many people that take up a position similar to my own, but who see themselves as courageous warriors against the meaninglessness inherent in the universe. I choose not to go down that path as I believe we have enough hero's, but are sorely lacking in those that can truely imbibe the implications of modernity without resorting to a twisting of the truth or outright lying (I'm not saying that you are lying).

You seem to think that I offer this theory as a totality, as if no other ideas are needed to explain the world. This is just my hobby horse friend. I am not trying to start a cult as your hyperbolic statements suggest. And as for Icelander, you will probably not be surprised to learn that I consider myself to be in some distant way a student of him. But, I believe that I am not as prone to the mood swings and misanthropy he often engaged in. So, please treat me like I am my own man, not some Icelander clone.

Finally, even if you believe that my ontology is a form of psychological weakness, could you still also hold that it is true? Why must a belief come from a place of strength to be true? Is might always right? Just to really get on your nerves I will psychoanalyse you for a moment. Did you know that most people believe that they are better than average drivers? Well my friend, most people cannot be better than average, otherwise it wouldn't be an average. I believe you are pulling a similar trick. Perhaps the slightly melancholy personality would correctly understand that they are not better than average, but just average or below like the other 50% of the driving population. And perhaps this melancholy personality would also realise some things about the meaning of life that others, whose psychological predilections are set ups to get them through the world in more fluid way, would not.

I will leave it up to you to explain why what you are calling weakness must be inherently untrue.

Quote:

Finally, even if you believe that my ontology is a form of psychological weakness, could you still also hold that it is true? Why must a belief come from a place of strength to be true? Is might always right? Just to really get on your nerves I will psychoanalyse you for a moment. Did you know that most people believe that they are better than average drivers? Well my friend, most people cannot be better than average, otherwise it wouldn't be an average. I believe you are pulling a similar trick. Perhaps the slightly melancholy personality would correctly understand that they are not better than average, but just average or below like the other 50% of the driving population. And perhaps this melancholy personality would also realise some things about the meaning of life that others, whose psychological predilections are set ups to get them through the world in more fluid way, would not.

I will leave it up to you to explain why what you are calling weakness must be inherently untrue.

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sudly said:

(example starts @ 4:00)

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blingbling said:

I actually tend to agree with religious ideologues on a lot of matters, particularly with regards to atheism ie. that atheism doesn't offer a viable solution for the problem of life's meaning.

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Well, with your argument you seem to imply that atheism is a specific ideology, and that all atheists follow this ideology. Atheism isn't one specific ideology. There might be atheistic communists, atheistic socialists, atheistic capitalists, atheistic environmentalists, atheistic bayesians, and so on. Atheism just implies the absence of a certain type of supernatural belief in an ideology.

More importantly, how people feel about how meaningful life is, might be just as much related to education and culture, as to if they are religious or not. I wouldn't for example be surprised if Montessori education made people find more meaning in life.



Education motivated by intellectual curiosity

Zanthius said:

sudly said:

(example starts @ 4:00)

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Yes, but if we put "the need for community" right above "the need for survival", we might be able to explain this behavior.  The homeless people simply feel less alienated from other homeless people, more like they are in the same community, and therefore they are more eager to help each other. Normal people might feel alienated from homeless people, less like they are in a community with them, and therefore less eager to help homeless people. It isn't necessarily so that homeless people have more empathy than normal people.

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sudly said:

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Homeless people, even though they don't have their basic needs met, are still charitable. This shows us that ultimately empathy is more important than any layer of the pyramid. - Kennard Kim

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Yeah. I don't necessarily believe that. I don't think that homeless guy would give that slice of his pizza if his very survival depended upon it. Have you seen the movie called Alive?

But this is also why I have put "need for survival" at the bottom, rather than "physiological needs". It doesn't really matter if it is lack of food/water that is threatening your survival, or some animal hunting you.

Usually there are multiple slices of a pizza.
Even the homeless can have basic survival needs met if basic survival needs means only food, water and sleep (like camping).

Beyond a need for survival under this definition and some sort of self-actualisation, I think the rest of the pyramid more so reflects our wants and desires over our needs, though safety, friendship and self esteem have a significant personal importance. 



I mean what the hell does this mean?

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Zanthius said: It doesn't really matter if it is lack of food/water that is threatening your survival, or some animal hunting you.

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Plus I like it the way it was made.

sudly said:

I mean what the hell does this mean?

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sudly said:

Plus I like it the way it was made.

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Quote:

Deficiency Needs vs. Growth Needs
Maslow believed that these needs are similar to instincts and play a major role in motivating behavior. Physiological, security, social, and esteem needs are deficiency needs, which arise due to deprivation. Satisfying these lower-level needs is important in order to avoid unpleasant feelings or consequences.

Maslow termed the highest level of the pyramid as growth needs. These needs don't stem from a lack of something, but rather from a desire to grow as a person.

While the theory is generally portrayed as a fairly rigid hierarchy, Maslow noted that the order in which these needs are fulfilled does not always follow this standard progression. For example, he noted that for some individuals, the need for self-esteem is more important than the need for love. For others, the need for creative fulfillment may supersede even the most basic needs.

Like Carl Rogers, Maslow emphasized the importance of self-actualization, which is a process of growing and developing as a person in order to achieve individual potential.

https://www.verywell.com/what-is-maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-4136760

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Despite the popularity of the theory, there has been surprisingly little research supporting the hierarchy’s accuracy. For this reason, psychologist Ed Diener of the University of Illinois led a study that put the famous hierarchy of needs to the test in different countries all over the world.

Researchers conducted surveys on food, shelter, safety, money, social support, respect, and emotions in 155 different countries between 2005 and 2010. While some aspects of their findings are consistent with Maslow's theory, there were also some notable departures. The needs described in the theory appear to be universal. However, the order in which these needs are met had little impact on people's satisfaction with life.

"Our findings suggest that Maslow's theory is largely correct. In cultures all over the world the fulfillment of his proposed needs correlates with happiness," Diener explained in a press release. "However, an important departure from Maslow's theory is that we found that a person can report having good social relationships and self-actualization even if their basic needs and safety needs are not completely fulfilled."

While the recent research seems to support the idea of universal human needs, support for Maslow's ranked hierarchy remains elusive.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21688922

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